A retailer who sells items over the Internet may offer hundreds, thousands, or even millions of items for sale. The retailer's item listings, which include information identifying the items and prices of the items, are accessible over the Internet by customers through the retailer's site. In addition to offerings that are available for purchase and fulfillment from the retailer, the retailer may provide a service that allows independent, third-party sellers to offer items for sale through the retailer's site. Under such an arrangement, the retailer typically receives a commission for items that are sold by the third-party sellers through the retailer's site. For example, the commission may equal a portion of the purchase price. In addition, some of these third-party sellers may operate Internet sites themselves through which the third-party sellers also directly offer the same items for sale.
An agreement between a retailer and a third-party seller who offers items for sale through the retailer's site may restrict the third-party seller from selling items at a more expensive price on the retailer's site than through the third-party seller's own sales channels, such as its websites, physical stores, mail order catalogs, etc. This requirement is known as price parity. However, for various reasons, a third-party seller may disregard price parity rules. For example, a third-party seller may offer items for sale at a more expensive price on the retailer's site in an attempt to drive traffic to the third-party seller's site (i.e., as a form of advertising) or to lessen the impact of the retailer's commissions on the third-party seller's margins. When a third-party seller disregards price parity rules, customers who would otherwise visit the retailer's site might check the price of an item on the third-party seller's site first before making a purchasing decision on the retailer's site. Consequently, the retailer may lose customers and sales while bearing the expense of advertising and merchandising the third-party seller's items.
Monitoring and enforcing price parity is a challenge for a retailer who provides hosting services for third-party sellers. For example, to monitor and enforce price parity, a retailer would need to know the landed price of an item (i.e., the product price and the shipping price) at a third-party seller's site and the landed price of that same item at the retailer's own site. Furthermore, the price data from both sites would need to be obtained at substantially the same time, because prices may fluctuate from day to day or during the course of a day.
Due to the volume of product listings (e.g., thousands or even millions) and the differences that exist between sites of third-party sellers, it is a significant challenge to automatically gather the price data using a computer program. For example, a retailer could attempt to code a computer program that gathers price data, but the retailer would need to expend significant time and resources to create such a program. Accordingly, writing a computer program that would accurately gather pricing information from many sites with differing formats is simply not practical. Moreover, even if a retailer was able to obtain accurate price data for items that are sold through third-party sellers' sales channels, the retailer would like to enforce price parity and encourage third-party sellers to adhere to price parity rules. Therefore, there is a need for improved systems and methods for monitoring and enforcing price parity.